Giorgio Armani sparks outrage by saying fashion industry is 'raping' women by making them wear racy clothes
Fashion designer Giorgio Armani has been criticized for trivializing sexual violence against women after he claimed that the fashion industry was "raping" women with short-lived trends and sex-driven marketing. The 85-year-old Italian designer's comments caused a lot of outrage.
Speaking as he presented his Emporio Armani line at Milan Fashion Week, Armani told reporters on February 21, "I think it’s time for me to say what I think. Women keep getting raped by designers, by us."
He added, "If a lady walks on the street and sees an ad with a woman with her b**bs and arse in plain sight and she wants to be like that too, that’s a way of raping her. You can rape a woman in many ways, either by throwing her in the basement or by suggesting that she dresses in a certain way."
"In my show, there are short skirts, long skirts, ample and tight trousers. I have given maximum freedom to women who can use all possibilities if they are sensible," he said, adding, "I’m sick of hearing the word 'trend'. We need to try to work for today's woman. There shouldn't be trends."
Tyler McCall, editor of fashionista.com website in New York, said on Twitter, "Armani says, several times, that designers are 'raping' women by making them dress inappropriately for their age etc, and I would love to chalk this one up to an age/language/culture barrier but uhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHH."
Booth Moore, executive editor of West Coast for WWD and the author of 'American Runway' and 'Where Stylists Shop', wrote on Twitter: "The exploitation of women in fashion imagery is not a new phenomenon, far from it. And I do think Armani has tried always to be respectful of women in his work. But the word 'rape' is very charged, in any language."
As per the Daily Mail, a 2018 study about sexism in fashion found that all women in the industry that were interviewed thought there was an inequality problem, while only half of the men believed the same.
